Winona ran over the grass and, happily, threw herself to the mud in the river's border, where she proceeded to thoroughly roll in it.
Nanda and Applejack reached it a moment later and, stepping in stones rather than the mud, filled their canteens.
"Its just hogwash, it is"
"You've only told me forty times"
"There is no such thing as some magic vital cycle. Energy and mass are used and reused, that's it"
"So you say" she slung her canteen from its strap and they went to sit in the grass, waiting for Winona to be done.
"And he truly believes it, too" Nanda followed suit.
"'fraid so"
"Just because some guy spent two years without eating and said it"
"I know"
"As if it was so hard, to channel ambiental magic into your system..."
"Aha"
"Changelings do it all the time, with barely any evolutionary specialization"
"Really"
"The shapeshifting is for completely different reasons. They are outbranched earth ponies, and not by that much"
"So when's the wedding?" grunted Applejack.
"The wed-? wha- no!" Nanda cut herself "My grudge with him is of a purely scientific and moral nature!"
They fell silent for a moment.
"And what's that about eating magic?"
"Technically," Applejack's brain, except for a small region dedicated to nodding, shut down "its funneling ambiental magic into your thaumic glands and making them work backwards, producing nutrients from the energy" Applejack's brain turned on again "You earth ponies do it a lot without realizing, its why you can go on for longer than others without food. But doing it like Nuti did, forcing them to completely replace food, is bad, the glands get damaged using them like that too much"
"Starving's worse" muttered Applejack, grabbing a flower near them and eating it distractedly.
"You want to learn how to do it, don't you"
"Could be useful" she admitted, noticing her improvement in the language with a mix of pride and annoyance at having done so long after exiting Thrata "There's deserts everywhere. I hadn't noticed just how many there were before"
"Well, it can't replace water... but I guess I could teach you. But!" she added severely "Don't trust if for more than a few days, maybe a week. Nuti ended invalid, blind, flightless, and completely unable to use what little magic gryphons have anyway. Good for him he came back as a flea or something, right?" she noticed that Applejack's eye had taken a particular glassed look and cleaned her throat "You grew in a farm, so... show your muscles, first"
Applejack gave her a look but did so, straining her arms and back. Nanda gave her an appraising look and blinked several times, getting increasingly irritated until she knocked her head, her eyes closed. When she opened them again, there was a certain blurriness about them.
"Yes, now relax them... tense them again... now, try to go through the mental process of tensing your muscles without actually doing it" Applejack tried several times "You should feel a sort of urge when you get it right, a want for release... no, don't give me that look, and yes, its exactly like what you are thinking about, I was young once, I know what I am talking about" she closed and reopened her eyes until the blurriness had gone away "Anyhow, it seems like your dog is done. It'll take you some time to get it right"
Applejack gave Winona a pat, "So how will this help me?"
"It won't, this is teaching you to control your magic without having to waste effort. When you can do it with ease, making the thaumic gland go backwards will be like using a mental switch"
"Sounds good," she got up "Now, lessee how much more mountain tries to fall on us"
Winona shook the mud out of her fur.
"You sonuva-!" cursed Nanda and Applejack at unison, in two separate languages.